Vanarlingi Re-bolting Project Completed

Pune - Shri Satish Marathe, President, Giridarshan Trekking Club along with Mr. Anil Khaire, President Safe Climbing Initiative (SCI) jointly announced that Vanarlingi ( Khada Parsi ) re-bolting project has been successfully completed.

The scenic location of Vanarlingi (Khada Parsi) is situated near Nane Ghat, 24 kms away from Junner. One can go to Ghatghar Village from Junnar by road after which a small trek route of 2kms leads to Fort Jivdhan where we can reach in approx 1½ hrs. This fort was a controlling point on a trade route passing through Nane Ghat which was in use since more than 2000 years. The location of the Vanarlingi ( Khada Parsi ) is just next to Jivdhan fort. Climbing height of this pinnacle is 400ft from its base. This pinnacle posses a great challenge to rock climbers & adventure lovers. It was first climbed in 1983 by a Mumbai based Mountaineering Club. The climbing grade of this pinnacle is very difficult and one should always carry a complete set of rock climbing equipment with them. Earlier many rock climbers used to climb this pinnacle on old bolts which were not tested for their weight capacity & life.

Mr. Satish Marathe, President, Giridarshan Trekking Club, said, "On Thursday 11th March 2010 this expedition started with team members from both NGO's Giridarshan Trekking Club and Safe Climbing Initiative, reached the base of Vanarlingi which is also called as Khada Parsi. The first day was kept reserved for establishing the campsite and arranging for other things like water etc. On 12th of March actual action started with the climb of the pinnacle."

"Indraneel & Shripad started climbing the pinnacle in the morning at 7.30am & reached on the top at 11.30am, while climbing they placed the safety bolts at each station till summit. There are 4 stations and the distance between 2 stations is about 25 Mtrs. While doing all this Swanand Joshi started climbing the pinnacle. During his climb he marked all the re-bolting points for placement of bolts."

From the 2nd day technical team started placing all the bolts on the climbing face and after placing all the bolts 2 teams climbed the entire pinnacle to recheck the positions. Corrections were made according to their suggestions, and finally the route was made safe.

Mr. Surendra Shelkhe, Secretary, SCI said, "The main attraction of this fort is Valley crossing, which is now safe by successful completion of rebolting project. The new bolts are made out of V2A steel. The climber's need to drill 9 cm deep and 18 mm wide hole at the marked location, with this we also use a special Chemical Tube for fixing the bolts. Battery operated drill machines used for this only drives 4 or 5 holes in one recharge and for this a generator was arranged on the site. By using this method the climb was made safe by placing 62 bolts on the pinnacle."

After this Jivdhan fort was made safe by placing 15 bolts. Trekking route from Ghatghar side to the fort was made safe by using 4 bolts of 9cms & the other entrance of the fort was made safe by using 6 bolts of 9cms. The top section of the fort from where people do valley crossing directly on the Vanarlingi (Khada Parsi) pinnacle, at this location we used 18cms long bolts. In all 77 bolts were placed for safety of the Pinnacle & the fort.

Shri Anil Khaire (President- SCI) has requested all Climbers, Trekkers, Mountaineers all Trekking and Mountaineering clubs to join SCI for this work.

Special Thanks to Mr. Dieter who got the special machine from Germany, which helped the SCI members to finish the project on time.

There was a strong team of 150 members from Giridarshan and Safe Climbing Initiative to complete this project. Purshottam Thakar from Giridarshan trekking club & Vikas Kaduskar from SCI were the project leaders for this project. Surendra Shelke, Vivek Marathe, Swanand Joshi, Shripad Sapkal, Dr. Narendra Patil, Ramesh Gulve, Sagar Palkar, Indraneel, Balaji Mane, Somnath Shinde, Sudhir Nigde, Satyavan, Praveen, Shrihari, Kalidas, Anand Birajdar, Prashant Pawar etc. installed the bolts & completed the project at actual location. Kitchen, Logistics and all other work was well managed by Shrikant, Siddharth, Pramod, Adinath, Shrikant Chavan, Rajendra, Amit Modak, Ranjeet, Ajit Kale, Yogesh, Ishani, Santosh, Avinav, Amit Govande, Kavita etc.

Dr. Bhushan Dhande from B J Medical College Mountaineering Academy took care of Medical facility for this Expedition. Photography credit goes to Prasad Dabke & Video shooting credit to Prashant Pawar.